MeeGo Preview At MWC 2011 Disappoints

Intel previewed MeeGo at MWC 2011 today and to say that industry bloggers were less than impressed would be an understatement. MeeGo is a collaboration between Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo, an announcement the two companies made just one year ago from the stages of MWC 2010 in Barcelona. Almost exactly one year later, Meego has developed very little and the future of Nokia has changed quite a lot.

Nokia announced its partnership with Microsoft and adopting Windows Phone 7 platform last week, abandoning Meego as its future smartphone and tablet platforms. Many are saying that the system has not progressed nor improved from its early alpha stages in the summer. It is so far behind other systems that Nokia had no other choice but to find another OS. Intel has decided it will stay with Meego and push its development for now. Users at MWC have said the software is buggy and slow, and very disappointing.

Meego utilizes a system of sliding panels that lets the user access photos, music, apps, web video, and friends. Tapping on a panel expands it to full screen and a longer press brings up menus. The Chromium-based web browser doesn’t support pinch-to-zoom right now, but does allow cut-and-paste.

Compared to the polished and refined platforms that run Android 3.0 tablets, HP’s webOS, and Apple’s iOS it doesn’t look like Meego will be a serious competitor anytime soon. Intel says they are “disappointed” with Nokia’s decision, but it isn’t hard to fault Nokia after reading these reports. Nokia hasn’t completely left Meego, the company says it might develop the system to be placed in automobiles, netbooks, and possibly other devices.